U.S. Treasury | ICT magazine

Posts Tagged ‘U.S. Treasury’

Will Americans Pay to Bailout Yet Another Foreign Bank … in Afghanistan?

September 4th, 2010 | No Comments

As I have repeatedly pointed out, American taxpayers have been bailing out foreign banks for years.For example, I noted in May:As the Wall Street Journal points out, the Federal Reserve might open up its “swap lines” again to bail out the Europeans:The…

EMC Settles Federal Pricing Fraud Lawsuit for $87.5 Million

May 25th, 2010 | No Comments

In the lawsuit, the Department of Justice alleged that, by misrepresenting its commercial pricing practices, EMC fraudulently induced the General Services Administration (GSA) to sign a contract including prices that were higher than they would have been had the company not made false misrepresentations. – EMC, the world’s largest independent storage hardware and software
producer, has paid the U.S. Treasury $87.5 million to settle out
of court a lawsuit charging that it illegally overcharged a federal
agency and violated two federal laws: the False Claims Act and
the Anti-kickback Act.

The ann…

The Giant Banks, Federal Reserve and Treasury Have All Blackmailed America

May 22nd, 2010 | No Comments

As I wrote last October: Congressmen Brad Sherman and Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn’t passed. And Rahm Emanuel famously said: Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I…

Americans Have Been Bailing Out Foreign Banks for Years … And We’re Getting Ready To Do It Again

May 9th, 2010 | No Comments

As the Wall Street Journal points out, the Federal Reserve might open up its “swap lines” again to bail out the Europeans:The Fed is considering whether to reopen a lending program put in place during the financial crisis in which it shipped dollars ov…

â€œWe Are in a Cabal… Five or Six Players … Own the Regulatory Apparatus. Everybody Is Afraid to Regulate Them”

April 1st, 2010 | No Comments

Harold Bradley – who oversees almost $2 billion in assets as chief investment officer at the Kauffman Foundation – told the Reuters Global Exchanges and Trading Summit in New York that a cabal is preventing swap derivatives from being forced onto clear…

7 Questions About Public Banking

March 14th, 2010 | No Comments

This is an open letter to the economics, finance and banking communities. I don’t have any dog in the fight, other than to figure out and then publicize what is best for the greatest number of people. People I greatly respect advocate for federal-leve…

We Can’t Inflate Our Way Out of the Debt Crisis … So What CAN We Do?

March 12th, 2010 | No Comments

As I wrote last August:Commonly-accepted wisdom says that we can inflate our way out of our debt crisis.***But as I have previously noted, UBS economist Paul Donovan has demonstrated that governments can’t inflate their way out of debt traps, saying:Th…

Demand that Congress Pass the “Keep Your Hands Off My 401(k) Act of 2010″

March 4th, 2010 | No Comments

As I wrote in January:Last May, I wrote about the rumor that the Obama administration might seize funds from American’s 401k and IRA accounts.Last week, Bloomberg pointed out:The Obama administration is weighing how the government can encourage workers…

“Behind Each Great Historical Phenomenon Lies A Financial Secret”

February 18th, 2010 | No Comments

Leading economic historian Niall Ferguson writes:Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret,Ferguson provides some examples:â€œIt was Nathan RothÂschild as much as the Duke of Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterlooâ€ …

Converting 401k and IRA Funds Into “Steady Payment Streams”

January 12th, 2010 | No Comments

Last May, I wrote about the rumor that the Obama administration might seize funds from American’s 401k and IRA accounts.Last week, Bloomberg pointed out:The Obama administration is weighing how the government can encourage workers to turn their savings…

Is The U.S. Government Buying Stocks?

January 3rd, 2010 | No Comments

As I pointed out in December 2008, Nouriel Roubini wrote the month before that the government might buy U.S. stocks:The Fed (or Treasury) could even go as far as directly intervening in the stock market via direct purchases of equities as a way to boo…

APEC ministers urge flexible FX to ease imbalances

November 11th, 2009 | No Comments

Asia-Pacific finance ministers were set to call for flexible exchange rates among measures to try to reduce global economic imbalances that were at the heart of the financial crisis.

The 21-member Pacific Rim group includes China, which is under pressure, particularly from the United States, to allow its currency to rise, having effectively pegged it against the dollar since the middle of 2008 to help fend off the global downturn.

“We agreed that flexible prices, including exchange rates and interest rates, play a critical role in allocating resources efficiently, and can facilitate the adjustments needed to support balanced and sustainable global growth,” the latest draft statement by the finance ministers said.

Foreign, trade and finance ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) have gathered in Singapore ahead of a summit of their national leaders this weekend focused on avoiding future crises, whether financial or climatic.

APEC is dominated by members of the Group of 20, including the United States, Russia, Japan and China, which has supplanted the Group of Seven as the world’s premier forum for global policy making.

Press liaison officers said Chinese representatives were present when the finance ministers’ draft was discussed.

The APEC draft statement coincided with a monetary policy statement by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, that provided the country’s clearest signal yet that it would allow the currency to appreciate again.

It said it will consider major currencies in guiding the yuan.

Beijing’s control of the yuan is a hot-button topic. The U.S. administration of Barack Obama says the yuan is undervalued and is one factor contributing to economic imbalances between the two countries, the first- and third-biggest economies in the world.

Obama told Reuters in an interview that he would be raising with Chinese leaders the sensitive issue of their yuan currency when he visits China next week.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Obama warned that the economic relationship between the two countries had become “deeply imbalanced” in recent decades, with a yawning trade gap and huge Chinese holdings of U.S. government debt.

Obama said he would work with China on his Asian visit to address the economic recovery and trade imbalances.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a semi-annual report on currency practices of key trade partners that China was piling up foreign exchange reserves at a rate that threatens progress in reducing global economic imbalances.

While China has been under pressure over the yuan, Washington for its part has been under pressure over the weakening dollar, which fell to a 15-month low on Wednesday.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday he believes strongly in the need to maintain a strong dollar and said America was determined to get its budget deficit down.

“I believe deeply that it’s very important to the United States, to the economic health of the United States, that we maintain a strong dollar,” Geithner said in a meeting with Japanese reporters at the U.S. embassy on Tokyo.

The U.S. Treasury chief was visiting Japan before heading later on Wednesday to Singapore to join the meeting of APEC finance ministers on Thursday.

DEEPLY IMBALANCED

Foreign, trade and finance ministers from APEC are in Singapore for meetings that will culminate in a weekend summit that Obama and other leaders will attend.

After foreign and trade ministers met for breakfast on Wednesday, Singapore’s representative George Yeo said they had discussed the global economic recovery, reform of financial institutions and resisting protectionism.

He said the consensus among ministers was that the global economic crisis was “by no means over”.

“The upturn that we now have is a respite. The situation is still fragile. We should still address the root cause of the problem,” he said.

The draft finance ministers’ statement agreed member economies with big deficits would undertake policies to support savings and those with surpluses would take steps to boost domestic demand to address the imbalances.

The finance ministers are expected according to the draft statement to pledge to maintain economic stimulus plans to support a global economic recovery.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said he was comfortable about the world’s growth prospects this year, but said there were risks.

“Recovery globally is not going to be symmetrical. It’s going to be at a different pace,” he told reporters in Singapore.

The trade and foreign ministers also have other issues on their agenda — including ways to mitigate the impact of climate change by promoting energy efficiency.

They will look at various models for a possible Asia-Pacific free trade area, which leaders of the group could then discuss at their weekend summit in Singapore.

APEC member economies account for 40% of the world’s population across four continents, more than half of global gross domestic product and nearly half of world trade.

But their members range from relatively poor countries such as Papua New Guinea, Peru and the Philippines, emerging markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, and rich economies, including the United States and Japan.

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Al-Qaeda “faces funding crisis”

October 13th, 2009 | No Comments

Al-Qaeda is in its worst financial state for many years while the Taliban’s funding is flourishing, according to the U.S. Treasury.
Senior Treasury official David Cohen said al-Qaeda had made several appeals for funds already this year.

Senior Harvard and Cato Economist: Government is Proposing to Institutionalize Bailouts for the Giant Banks

September 24th, 2009 | No Comments

Jeffrey Miron will testify today at 9 am east coast time before the House Committee on Financial Services.Miron is the Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard, and also a Senior Fellow at the Cato…

4 Signs that China is Moving Out of the Dollar

September 8th, 2009 | No Comments

There are 3 recent signs that China is moving out of the dollar.First, in June, China was a net seller of U.S. Treasury bonds (and shorter term notes) for the first time ever. As Mike Larson writes:A few days ago, the U.S. Treasury Department revealed…